


damn the clawing, kneeling

by detectivemeer



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Confusion, Delusions, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Hallucinations, M/M, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Second Person, Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, brief reference to internalized homophobia, death ideation, unreality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-05-30 16:37:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6432175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/detectivemeer/pseuds/detectivemeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve falls and freezes. But he does not sleep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	damn the clawing, kneeling

**Author's Note:**

> title from “Glacier” by James Vincent McMorrow bc i crack myself up  
> it would make more sense if he didn't, but i couldn't stop thinking about what if steve remained conscious all those years on the ice and then accidental ot3 happened. this is basically that text post about daydreaming about ur crush but then being like no wait that’s not realistic they wouldn’t say that, except with bonus crushing sadness

iii.

“What did you dream of?”

People ask this all the time. “What did you dream of, Steve?” In the ice, after you fell, when you should have been dying? What did you dream of, did they change every decade, do you remember them?

“I didn’t,” is always the answer. “It wasn’t like sleeping, it was like blinking.”

i.

When you crash, you don't die.

It's dark and loud, which is surprising, you think, since you're the only person here. Death should be silent.

But you're not dead.

The plane moans and water screams as it rushes in through the cracking glass. You drag yourself from the chair to the ground, glass grinds into your palms and the shock of the water, so cold it burns, leaves you coughing and gasping desperately, crawling forward on hands and knees. You lie down on the freezing, grated ground, close your eyes, and wait to die.

-

You do not die. (This is the punchline.)

-

You can’t move. This is the first thing you’re sure of.

You can’t move. You’re not moving. You can’t hear your heartbeat in your ears or the water drowning you or bullets or screams or _anything_.

You’re cold. You are so, so cold. That’s the second thing you’re sure of.

-

Regenerative healing process, wasn't that was Erskine said? So your body is healing as it's dying. Keeps fighting and fighting. But eventually it'll lose. You may heal quicker, but you can't outrun death. You'll just last a little longer. But it's coming for you. It's coming.

-

For a long time (somewhere between one minute and one decade, probably) you are simply awake.

You are awake and awake and awake. You can’t hear the life of your own body but you are achingly alive. Your blood and skin and muscle are all ice and it _hurts_.

It doesn't hurt at all, of course, you’re completely numb, but the wrongness sits like a rock in your throat. You should be breathing. You should be blinking. There should be sound.

It is dark and utterly silent. You should be breathing, but you do nothing but exist.

_This is hell_ , you think. Your sins have finally caught up to you, and this. This is your penance. Fire and brimstone, you think, you beg for it. _God please. Burn me a thousand times over but just stop this silence. Give me back a shred a warmth. Please. God._ _Please._

-

You remember the first time you killed someone, watched him pinwheel to his death after kicking him over the railing. You didn’t mean to. He was Hydra and you had to save Bucky, but you didn’t mean to. He was only your first of course, but now all you can think is _I’m sorry, I’m so sorry._ All you can think is how jealous you are of him, of all of them, of their deaths. You hate them for not killing you instead.

-

You’re in Azzano. Bucky is screaming at you from across a pit of fire. You jump. The flames eat you up, so hot they’re freezing--

-

There was this man, and you remember he had big, round eyes. Green eyes. You weren’t as skilled as him in hand-to-hand but you were significantly stronger. You were in a half-bombed out house, everything charred and black. He stabbed you with the leg of a broken chair, it stuck out from your gut like a new limb. It hurt. It _hurt_. You could barely see through the pain, reached out wildly and grabbed handfuls of his hair. Slammed his head against the wall. Just once; he went limp instantly, a smear of blood and bone sliding down the scorched wallpaper.

-

You stole a candy bar from a store. It was Bucky’s birthday and you’d only just gotten hired as a newsie. You saved up for weeks to pay back the old man in the store but he’d gone out of business by then.

-

You thought about Peggy in ways a gentleman shouldn’t. You kissed Lorraine and hurt Peggy. You were angry at your mom for a whole year after she died, for leaving you.

You didn’t do enough to help when you should’ve. You got into fights too often. You missed church to work overtime when your ma got real sick. You never really liked going to church on Sundays, anyway.

You cursed and you drank and you killed men, even though it was war. You felt okay about killing them, at the beginning, before you knew what a weight it was. You were careless with the lives of the men you were meant to protect. You failed them. You were selfish, greedy, stubborn, wrathful, weak of spirit.

-

You loved Bucky. You loved him and you let him die.

-

You wanted Bucky. In ways a gentleman--any man--shouldn’t.

-

You lay out your sins like cards on table. There they are. This is your hand. _Judge me now and send me to those lakes of fire; release me from this purgatory._

-

Bucky didn't get a proper burial. Why are you so selfish to think you would?

-

Maybe if you can exhaust yourself, you’ll fall asleep and just never wake up, so you start counting.

One. Two.

-

One thousand. Two thousand.

-

One million. One hundred million.

-

You lose count. Start over.

-

One. Two.

-

How long have you been in the ice?

How long have you _not_ been in the ice?

-

Misery builds inside your gut, grows and grows. It crawls into the back of your mouth and floods over your tongue. You can’t breathe it out. You can’t breathe. It sits and rots in your mouth and throat and guts until you’re almost sure you’d miss it if it left.

-

Your life wasn’t spent in here. You’re sure of that. You almost sure of that.

You start playing memories, over and over, just to occupy yourself, chasing every thought for as long as you can.

-

Things you remember: your mother, butter curls and chapped lips and dry hands rubbing dirt off your cheeks, tsking at the bruise on your jaw. Her long fingers pinching a cigarette, eyes going wide with guilt as she blows the smoke from her nose quickly and stubs it out, slamming the window shut. Music filling the apartment and you close your eyes and stand with your feet on her feet, she slips her hands in yours and swings you around the floor, singing along in her soft, honey-sweet voice--you feel like you’re flying.

-

Things you remember: Bucky, age twelve, his mouth is bruised purple at the edges. His eyes are bright, his hair stuck up and wild. He holds your hand when you cough and he rubs your back, very gently.

-

Things you remember: Peggy and the Howling Commandos in a bar. Peggy looks like something out of a dream, like she stepped out of a painting. Bucky’s warm next to you, alive despite the war’s best efforts. Peggy looks at you and you feel bigger than ever, bigger than the body you’re in, which is pretty big these days. She smiles. You want to kiss her. You kiss her. She laughs when you part, wipes the lipstick off your--

No. You want to kiss her, but you don’t. She smiles and she leaves. Bucky leans against you, warm, warm, warm. “You’re keeping the outfit, right?” He smiles, leans closer, his breath clouding over your mouth and you--

That’s not what happened.

-

Maybe, though. Maybe Bucky leans closer. His lips are soft, his stubble sharp. He doesn’t leave any lipstick marks, but he smiles and you feel enormous, bigger than the moon. His happiness swells your heart so large there’s barely room left in your chest for your lungs to draw a breath.

No. God, no, that’s not--he wouldn’t--

He wouldn’t. He _didn’t_.

-

Time time time time time

In and out. Breathe. Count them out. One second. One million.

Breathe, Steve. Breathe. Breathe. In and out. Breathe the water into your lungs bite your tongue off with your teeth and choke on it breathe breathe breathe

-

Bucky, age twelve. He's got a cut on his cheek, he's got purple under his eyes. His hair is wild and stuck up all over, and his eyes are vivid blue. He rubs your back. He holds your hand through your whole fever.

-

You get in a metal coffin and ice creeps into your bones. You peek out through the opening.

"Am I dead yet," you ask.

"No," Erskine says, sadly. "Not yet."

Let me out. Let me out.

You try to scream, but there's blood in your mouth. Ice in your throat. You try. You--

-

Things you remember: Bucky, sixteen. He's got these eyes, blue as sky. You can't stop staring and he catches you, turns, grins that sly smile of his. He puts his hand on your waist. His mouth on your neck. Your spine melts like sugar on a tongue and you clutch his shirt, wrinkling the striped button down, pressing your bodies together.

No. No, go back. Start over.

Bucky, younger than he looks, but still teasing you about how much wiser he is. Hand messing your hair, arm around your neck. You laugh, blush, embarrassed. Peggy smiles politely. Street lights illuminate your steps. She steps between both of you, hooks her arms through each of yours. You walk her to her room and she grabs your ties, pulls you both forward, in--

Wait.

-

“Age before beauty,” you say, catching your tongue between your teeth as you smirk. Bucky makes a show of grabbing at his low back and hobbling forward. You laugh helplessly.

Peggy laughs too, and it strikes you just how beautiful she is there. Face golden and shadowed from the streetlights, the sound of her laugh so full and warm you want to wrap yourself up in it. She smiles at you, head tilted, looking up at you through her eyelashes.

You still can’t get used to being taller than her, than anybody really. You still have to twist to accommodate your bulk when you open the door to your apartment. You still have to shrink in on yourself when you’re in Brooklyn. Your shoulders are so big they touch the tops of skyscrapers.

There are no skyscrapers in the trenches.

“Yuk it up! But there’s only one beauty here and it ain’t you pal.” Bucky makes cow eyes at Peggy, fluttering his lashes, hand over heart. She curls her arm through yours, makes a silly face back at Bucky, tongue stuck out and eyes crossed and all. It startles a laugh out of both of you.

“Jealousy isn’t a good look, James.” She smacks a kiss to your cheek like a bullet through flesh and wipes the bloody lipstick off with her thumb. “Steve and I would be happy to share makeup tips, if that’s what you're fishing for.” She winks at you, like you’re sharing some big inside joke and it warms you from head to toe. It’s so hard to feel warm, these days.

Bucky makes a gesture of acquiescence. “I’ll leave it to the professionals.” What with the mud and ice. You thought snow on the ground would freeze mud but it just turned it to cold wet sludge. You can see the enemies’ clouded white breaths before their faces.

“Steve?” Peggy’s hand on your arm. Right. Right. Not cold, warm.

You’re not even out in the street, you’re inside, cross-legged on a thick rug, in front of a fireplace. Bucky’s got you all bundled in blankets and they press up against either side of you; palms, friction, heat. They kiss your cheeks, your nose, curl closer, hot, hot skin.

Embers catch on the blankets. Fire swallows you whole. It’s still not enough, _why, why isn’t--_

-

It’s after the war. The war is over and Bucky and Peggy are standing at your elbows. They’re laughing at something you can’t hear. Gabe and Dum Dum and all of the Commandos are there, too, packed in your tiny living room. Morita tells a joke; Falsworth chokes on his drink.

Bucky and Peggy stand next to you, so warm and lovely, smiling at the Commandos making a mess of their living room. Gabe draws you in, smushes you in between his side and Denier’s, their arms draped over your shoulders. They’re singing something morbid about the war in bright, cheerful voices. Everyone else catches on, joins in. You wrestle yourself out from their grip, grinning fondly.

Bucky leans down to sing in your ear in obnoxious, warbling tones. You look up to Peggy pleadingly but she starts to sing even louder. They meet eyes, shouting the song louder and louder until the silverware starts to shake on the table. You laugh. Glass shatters and spills out of the cabinets. Metal ripping through metal. Ripping through bone. Machinery screaming. The cacophony of sound rises until it swallows you whole, gobbles up every sense, until it's so loud there's no sound at all.

-

But memories stop playing like newsreels, start sliding like wet paint on a wide canvas, sloppy and unfinished and dripping into one another. It's difficult to tell where one ends and another begins.

-

Maybe. Maybe it happened like this:

Peggy’s got you by the tie and your hands hover over her waist and she drags you into her room, eyes closed and backward and not stumbling once as you trip over your feet with every step. Bucky is behind you. There’s a war outside, but inside this room Bucky’s hands are hot on your hips and Peggy is pulling your fingers to the spots that makes her breath catch.

-

Waiting to die’s a painful game, but you don’t mind as much when you’re waiting in between them.

-

“You aren’t from here,” you say.

She clucks her tongue, giving a small head shake and indulgent smile. “Oh, Steve.”

-

You think you remember Brooklyn and _I got beat up in that alley_  only this time it’s Peggy knocking bullies to the ground with her mean swing and confident tilt of the jaw, eyes glinting. Only this time it’s you saving Bucky, but when he looks up at you (up and up and up) he flinches away, doesn’t recognize you at all. You try to reach out, tell him no, no, you’ve got it wrong, it’s me, Steve, your friend, but he’s too far away, sliding further. Your legs are frozen and your arm reaches and reaches but he falls away. You keep waiting to follow but you can’t move, can’t breathe, just watch him disappear. You’re not in an alley and Peggy has no eyes and you’re not in Brooklyn at all.

-

If you think something often enough, doesn’t that make it a memory?

-

This is Brooklyn. This one you’re sure of: you and Bucky, Coney Island. Your face is hot and your guts are all twisted up with guilt and nausea from wasting good food but Bucky’s laughing so hard he’s crying, waves his hands at you and keeps trying to control his grin, says, _not at you, pal, no, no, just--your face when--I’m sorry, sorry. You okay?_  He gives you gum and a warm, one-armed hug. You let his good mood infect you, and he fails spectacularly at the high striker. He sits up on the pier. You say something about splinters and he sticks his tongue out at you, hair wind blown and cheeks ruddy. You shiver, like walking into a warm room when it’s cold outside. You smile for no other reason than he’s your best friend, and he’s so happy it makes your heart hurt in a funny way. He bounces on his feet when he hops off the railing and bumps your shoulders together. Calls you a sap.

You don’t want to lose this one. Not this one please, leave it untouched, just let it rest. Don’t corrupt this one. You don’t know who you’re begging, exactly, but you beg. You beg.

-

Peggy’s hands on your shoulders pinning you to the wall. You’re drinking tea with her over your wobbly kitchen table. Bucky curses as hot coffee splashes over onto his hands. He puts the mugs on the table. He puts his hand on your thigh. He’s behind Peggy, kissing her neck. She’s smiling over cold toast and burnt coffee, soft and lovely, holding your hand over the table. She’s got a gun, or Bucky does, or you do, and it goes off. You’re in the trenches, in the mud, covered in blood, she’s grinning, she’s got a gun. You’ve got a gun. _Peggy_ , you say, try to say.

Where’s Bucky, where’s the gun, where-- _No._

Brooklyn, with her hands on your shoulders, Bucky’s kissing her neck. All of you crammed in your cheap bed, skin and hands and heartbeats. You love them, you love them, and they smile when you say it. Bucky makes breakfast in the morning. Peggy puts her feet in your lap, holds your hand, kisses you, burnt coffee and cold toast. Bucky watches you, smiling to himself.

Peggy’s never been in your apartment.

Is this Brooklyn, is this--

-

Cold is not a hard enough word.

ii.

_Am I dead yet_ , you think, staring at the plain white walls, listening to the radio report a game you know already from sticky seats and sweat and licking sugar off your fingers, yelling over the crack of a bat, leaning into a familiar set of shoulders, laughter, cut grass and crinkled tickets. Bucky’s feet are kicked up on the bed. Peggy sits next to them, shooing his muddied boots away from her neatly pressed pants.

They grin fondly, and together say: "No, not yet."

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact it would take three years a month and some change to count to one hundred million, assuming each number takes one second to count, haha steve u sad sack (i almost made it a billion bc that takes ~31 years and i love the idea of him wasting that much time being a stubborn shit)  
> 


End file.
